The President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense have all spoken in recent days about the urgency of dealing with the threat posed to the American people, and others, by Saddam Hussein. In what may well be the most important speech of his presidency, President Bush has argued eloquently and persuasively to the United Nations in New York that Saddam's open defiance of the United Nations, and his scornful refusal to heed its many injunctions, is a challenge to the credibility of the UN itself. And he has rightly asked the United Nations to approve a Security Council Resolution that would force Saddam to choose between full compliance with the many resolutions he has scorned and violated and action to remove his regime from power.

Saddam's response--calculating, deceitful and disingenuous--moves only slightly in the direction of accepting U.N. inspections of Iraqi territory. And even in this it is far from clear he has offered to accept a robust inspection regime. Such a regime would, at a minimum, include substantial inspection teams with Americans in key leadership and decision-making roles distributed throughout Iraq, an independent capability to move anywhere from inspection team bases to any site in the country without prior notification or approval, the right to interview any Iraqi or Iraqi resident together with his family at safe locations outside Iraq, appropriate self-defense capabilities for the inspectors so they can overcome efforts to impede them, and the like.

My own view is that even with all that it is simply not possible to devise an inspection regime on territory controlled by Saddam Hussein that can be effective in locating, much less eliminating, his weapons of mass-destruction. In any case, the inspection regime known as Unmovic doesn't even come close: Its size, organization, management and resources are all inadequate for the daunting task of inspecting a country the size of France against Saddam's determined program of concealment, deception and lying.

We know, Mr. Chairman, that Saddam lies about his program to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. We know he goes to great lengths to conceal his activities. We know that he has used the years during which no inspectors were in Iraq to move everything of interest, with the result that the data base we once possessed, inadequate though it was, has been destroyed. We know all of this yet I sometimes think there are those at the United Nations who treat the issue not as a matter of life and death, but rather more like an episode of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, or an Easter egg hunt on a sunny Sunday.

Saddam is better at hiding than we are at finding. And this is not a game. If he eludes us and continues to refine, perfect and expand his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, the danger to us, already great, will only grow. If he achieves his holy grail and acquires one or more nuclear weapons there is no way of knowing what predatory policies he will pursue.

That is why, Mr. Chairman, the President is right to demand that the United Nations promptly resolve that Saddam comply fully with the full range of United Nations resolutions concerning Iraq or face an American led enforcement action.

Richard Perle is a resident fellow at AEI.